Yesterday I told you about my venture with bread. If it’s not made exactly right with precise measurements and timing, it’s not going to be very good. If you don’t use the yeast correctly, it won’t rise. If you use too much flour, it will be dry. The wrong type of flour – even drier! So today I want to talk about how efficiently the “recipes” for your gym are being used today. I imagine that you write systems because you want staff to follow them pretty closely.
If the system for closing up the gym says to take out the trash and your staff breezes through the system forgetting that step, you’re probably going to be annoyed walking in Monday morning with a terrible smell through the lobby. I talk to gym owners all the time who are frustrated by little things like this. Usually they know their staff didn’t intentionally do these things, but it’s small things that add up to you having to clean up after them and solve problems that should have been fixed days ago.
So, like any gracious person, you let it slide. You don’t want to come across micromanaging, right?
Wrong.
If you had a friend who kept using a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon for salt every time she made cookies, wouldn’t you tell her at one point? (Some of you are too nice and wouldn’t do that.) But what if you knew your friend wanted to have the best recipe out there. She was committed to being GREAT at making cookies, and she made the same mistake over and over. At that point, wouldn’t you tell her out of kindness and with every intention of helping her be better? (Some of you are STILL too nice!) Me? I’d tell her. I want others to reach their goal, and sometimes it’s just a small fix that makes all the difference.
Your staff WANTS to do a good job. They want to please you and make you proud of them. At least the people I employ – that’s the type of people they are. They want me to tell them if they’re not doing a great job so they can fix it. I owe it to them.
So, if your staff isn’t following the recipe exactly right, let them know – every single time. I know it sounds micromanaging, but you’ll actually be shocked at how little you’ll have to micromanage when you’re forthright with your feelings and your feedback.
